This blog shares stories and photographs about outdoor travels in the Northwest.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

A Ghostly Moose near Kooskooskie, but a Moose Nevertheless

by Don Davis

See more photos at www.tripper.smugmug.com

Moose have been seen in the Walla Walla area, especially on the outskirts of College Place, with some regularity.
On at least two occasions in the last decade or so, a pair of moose calves has been killed, once by a slow-moving train and once by automobiles.
Alas, despite my intense headlong searches when moose sightings occur, the only ones I have seen were a pair killed illegally by gunfire near Indian Ridge, close to the Walla Walla Watershed.
So, when I recently saw a moose (when Darlene, Nora the Schnauzer and I took an evening drive up Mill Creek Road) I nearly unhinged my dropped jaw.
Actually, though my first impression was Moose, the image was so vague and fleeting that my certainty faded almost before the word "Moose" passed my lips.
Nevertheless, I snapped images of the thick stream-side growth approximately where I had detected the movement.
And Darlene said she could distinguish two moose-like figures feeding in the shadows, perhaps a cow and a calf.
Nora made no commitment.
I did not see anything clearly until I uploaded the images onto the computer. It looked like a real moose in the thicket.

Well, they're vague if not obscure images. Yet, they seem to reveal a moose lurking in the thicket. Or perhaps it's Bigfoot who has also been seen in the area. ...

About Me

Now retired, I once spent several hours each week, sometimes several days, traveling with Darlene and Nora the Schnauzer (since Sadie the Dalmatian died) in the outdoors of the Pacific Northwest, often with a fly rod and/or a backpack and always with a camera, to research columns for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin . See photos at www.tripper.smugmug.com.